![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jebbypalsome idiot stuck his clothes in the washer and didn't start it or didn't notice that it didn't start...and it's a lot of washers. Auugh.
Okay, I was surfing the net and went back to some of my old allergy sites and followed some new links. And what I saw there rang very true to me, so I thought it would share. I am not a doctor..I do know a lot about immunology, but I'm not a medical professional. This is all based on my own experience and web research.
Granted, I will admit that migraines/sinus headaches are not caused by food allergies for everyone. But if you read some of this list and it sounds applicable to you (and you have lots of sinus/yeast/bladder infections), give it a thought or two.
Okay then. Here's the quiz, do you frequently feel incredibly sleepy (as in you invariably drowse off for 15 min even if you are prepping for an important meeting)? Do you have trouble thinking after eating? Mood swings? Do you notice that you always get the headache at the same time of day? Do you crave a particular type of food? Or when you are eating, are there foods that cause you to feel "happy/hyper"? Especially that last one! Do you feel "better" when you eat almost nothing? (I am not advocating anorexia or not eating!!)
If so, I strongly suggest you catalogue what you eat and when your headaches occur. And cut out whatever makes you feel "happy/hyper" or that you "crave". Crave meaning that when you are alone and eating it, you will sometimes give in to the temptation to lick the bowl because that's how good it tastes.
If you start to notice that you are having fewer headaches, it's possible that whatever you craved or whatever you noticed you ate, say, the meal before the headache started, you are allergic too. Sadly, that's not a fast and simple answer -- you now need to do research to determine what foods are related to that (or if it's a processed food, you need to do a lot of experimenting to determine the problem ingredient) or what additives are derived from it.
The only encouragement I can give you is that if you do have a hidden food allergy and find it, you might discover that by eliminating that food, you feel better than you ever have before. I state this from personal experience - I suffered from sinus problems from the age of 2-22 and had almost constant sinus infections after the age of 16. Additionally, I'd always felt "achy" for as long as I could remember and my parents can attest to the "abruptness" of my mood swings that they attributed to either my headaches or general adolescentness.
When I entered grad school at 21, I'd been having worse and worse headaches that weren't simply sinus headaches anymore as well as suddenly having more GI problems than I'd ever had. I couldn't stay awake for the hour after I ate any meal...and this was despite having a lecture class after lunch. Since corn syrup had given me stomach aches as a child, I eliminated it thinking that I was reacting more severely... And I felt better for about 3 days. Long story short, I soon found a website named Avoiding Corn (see my sidebar), and a lightbulb went on.
I eliminated a LOT of the things listed on the Avoiding Corn website slowly (slowly, because it's hard as hell to go from processed food diet to suddenly making everything from scratch when you'd never been much into cooking) and slowly I got better. Now I only have GI problems when I eat at a new restaurant or decide get risky by having something at a restaurant that I know I shouldn't probably. My acne has cleared up TONS for the first time since I was 10. My joints don't ache year round, now it's only those that I've actually injured that hurt during the winter. And instead of having at least two bad headaches a week that last anywhere from 5 hrs to 2 days, I have maybe two a month and an excedrin generally always gets rid of them.
Corn isn't the only culprit, merely the one for me and in my opinion, one of the more annoying ones thanks to the wonderful Corn Farming lobby. But that's another rant. I have a friend who reacts to almost every citrus fruit as well as nightshade vegetables. Almost anything can do it. And a lot of real medical doctors will tell you that your allergen has to be a protein -- honestly, I don't believe it. Frankly, it's been a long time since I've actually had corn because I don't like corn in and of itself and never have. But for me, the things that will knock me down and wishing for a warp drive to take me back to my home (and more importantly, my bathroom!), are corn starch, corn oil, and corn syrup. Derivatives I can handle and generally get a headache from or extremely bitchy (which sadly, the bitchiness and brain fog last a while--it can take me a day or two to get back to "normal" from an allergy attack). Those three, I get the migraine plus other fun.
So yeah, that's it. What mostly brought up this lecture was that during my surfing I ran across this webpage -- the main thrust that gets into headaches and allergy connections is about halfway down that first page.
Allergies might not be the cause. But believe me, I wish that someone had thought that the cause of my sinus headaches when I was three could be food oriented. Of course, I probably would have been a very different child, but hey, I think I could live w/ it. I know my parents probably would have enjoyed it more too.
Okay, I was surfing the net and went back to some of my old allergy sites and followed some new links. And what I saw there rang very true to me, so I thought it would share. I am not a doctor..I do know a lot about immunology, but I'm not a medical professional. This is all based on my own experience and web research.
Granted, I will admit that migraines/sinus headaches are not caused by food allergies for everyone. But if you read some of this list and it sounds applicable to you (and you have lots of sinus/yeast/bladder infections), give it a thought or two.
Okay then. Here's the quiz, do you frequently feel incredibly sleepy (as in you invariably drowse off for 15 min even if you are prepping for an important meeting)? Do you have trouble thinking after eating? Mood swings? Do you notice that you always get the headache at the same time of day? Do you crave a particular type of food? Or when you are eating, are there foods that cause you to feel "happy/hyper"? Especially that last one! Do you feel "better" when you eat almost nothing? (I am not advocating anorexia or not eating!!)
If so, I strongly suggest you catalogue what you eat and when your headaches occur. And cut out whatever makes you feel "happy/hyper" or that you "crave". Crave meaning that when you are alone and eating it, you will sometimes give in to the temptation to lick the bowl because that's how good it tastes.
If you start to notice that you are having fewer headaches, it's possible that whatever you craved or whatever you noticed you ate, say, the meal before the headache started, you are allergic too. Sadly, that's not a fast and simple answer -- you now need to do research to determine what foods are related to that (or if it's a processed food, you need to do a lot of experimenting to determine the problem ingredient) or what additives are derived from it.
The only encouragement I can give you is that if you do have a hidden food allergy and find it, you might discover that by eliminating that food, you feel better than you ever have before. I state this from personal experience - I suffered from sinus problems from the age of 2-22 and had almost constant sinus infections after the age of 16. Additionally, I'd always felt "achy" for as long as I could remember and my parents can attest to the "abruptness" of my mood swings that they attributed to either my headaches or general adolescentness.
When I entered grad school at 21, I'd been having worse and worse headaches that weren't simply sinus headaches anymore as well as suddenly having more GI problems than I'd ever had. I couldn't stay awake for the hour after I ate any meal...and this was despite having a lecture class after lunch. Since corn syrup had given me stomach aches as a child, I eliminated it thinking that I was reacting more severely... And I felt better for about 3 days. Long story short, I soon found a website named Avoiding Corn (see my sidebar), and a lightbulb went on.
I eliminated a LOT of the things listed on the Avoiding Corn website slowly (slowly, because it's hard as hell to go from processed food diet to suddenly making everything from scratch when you'd never been much into cooking) and slowly I got better. Now I only have GI problems when I eat at a new restaurant or decide get risky by having something at a restaurant that I know I shouldn't probably. My acne has cleared up TONS for the first time since I was 10. My joints don't ache year round, now it's only those that I've actually injured that hurt during the winter. And instead of having at least two bad headaches a week that last anywhere from 5 hrs to 2 days, I have maybe two a month and an excedrin generally always gets rid of them.
Corn isn't the only culprit, merely the one for me and in my opinion, one of the more annoying ones thanks to the wonderful Corn Farming lobby. But that's another rant. I have a friend who reacts to almost every citrus fruit as well as nightshade vegetables. Almost anything can do it. And a lot of real medical doctors will tell you that your allergen has to be a protein -- honestly, I don't believe it. Frankly, it's been a long time since I've actually had corn because I don't like corn in and of itself and never have. But for me, the things that will knock me down and wishing for a warp drive to take me back to my home (and more importantly, my bathroom!), are corn starch, corn oil, and corn syrup. Derivatives I can handle and generally get a headache from or extremely bitchy (which sadly, the bitchiness and brain fog last a while--it can take me a day or two to get back to "normal" from an allergy attack). Those three, I get the migraine plus other fun.
So yeah, that's it. What mostly brought up this lecture was that during my surfing I ran across this webpage -- the main thrust that gets into headaches and allergy connections is about halfway down that first page.
Allergies might not be the cause. But believe me, I wish that someone had thought that the cause of my sinus headaches when I was three could be food oriented. Of course, I probably would have been a very different child, but hey, I think I could live w/ it. I know my parents probably would have enjoyed it more too.
